There was a time when Beck was just a hipster trickster. He released albums like Odelay and Midnite Vultures, slapdash monsters of hustle and rhyme. He could show a subtle side on an album like Mutations, with its downbeat acoustic ventures and surreal escapes; but even here, his voice still snarled with a bit of snark, a youthful, tinny wink.
From his first release in 1993 to Midnite Vultures in 1999, six hard-working years, he traversed musicality with the palpability of a forest elf.
He had spent significantly longer - nine years - with his girlfriend until they broke up after the release of that Midnite Vultures record. Beck publicly admitted the breakup was devastating, causing him to write a series of songs about his feelings of loss and despair. Until this point, writing about and admitting personal issues had been on the other side of the universe from Beck's interests.
Change was in the air. And he not only changed personally; he changed sonically.
I was a young guy who got tickets to see Beck perform a solo show at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was on a mini-tour, testing material off an upcoming album, which would turn out to be called Sea Change.
Sea Change was the album hosting the songs he wrote about his breakup. Its recording had been delayed by the September 11 attacks. A good amount of time and a world of change had intervened between Midnite Vultures and the new album. I really thought nothing of it.
From straight-ahead center in the top balcony of the theater, I looked down on a stage filled with an assortment of instruments: Guitars, piano, drums, a Radioshak toy beat-making guitar, and more I can't remember.
The man entered, and we applauded politely in the intimacy of the occasion. He sat on a stool at the front of the stage, picked up his acoustic guitar. A pal of his sat to his left, in shadow, at a pedal steel.
Beck began with a few silly numbers and goofy comments, and he played "Cold Brains" off Mutations, just warming up. "Cold Brains" is one of my favorite Beck songs. It was him just as I loved him, as I presently knew him.
He began his first new song, after a pause, with a soft strum. The acoustics of the Fitzgerald Theater are wonderful. It was the perfect place to hear the sound I heard next, which was Beck's new voice.
It went beyond the notes of the song. Resonating in that excellent room, his vocal for the new composition had a richness I was not even close to expecting. Suddenly gone from his baritone was that affected edge that kept his vocal chords from fully expanding. In its place was a deep, deep, mournful, glowing tone that broke in grainy fissures. He had changed from the inside out.
The song he played was "Guess I'm Doing Fine." It graced the silence of the room. And the moment where he ends his verse melody with those two small lifts was the moment where the old Beck was truly gone.